


Shed a Little Light

by Septembers_coda



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dreams, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Memories, Pre-Canon, Ratings: PG, Sam Cooks, Teen Dean, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septembers_coda/pseuds/Septembers_coda
Summary: Sam can cook—he just usually leaves it to Dean. But now he remembers a time when he had to fend for himself, and thinks of a way he might lift Dean’s spirits now when he needs it.





	Shed a Little Light

How hard could it really be to make stew? Some meat, some vegetables—he’d had to take the wilted leftovers the vendors gave away at the end of a farmer’s market, but they seemed fine. Sam hadn’t had much experience with vegetables, but now that he was on his own, he intended to change that.

He’d learned to be resourceful. He couldn’t afford to buy spices, of course, but he knew enough about cooking to know the food wouldn’t taste like much without them. So he’d done some creative thinking. Moving day at the end of the school year at Northern Arizona University had been a jackpot in other ways—any furniture left by the dumpsters was fair game, if he could get it back to his shack; he’d scavenged a beanbag, a hula lamp, and a battered kitchen chair. Encouraged by this first success, he went back and watched the students leaving, and slipped into unlocked dorm-apartments to see what had been left behind inside. He already had a box of salt, of course, but after several apartments, he scored an old, bent saucepan, some sugar, cornstarch, pepper, garlic salt, a mostly-empty tin of cinnamon, and a bottle of mystery orange-ish spice with the label peeled off. He even found some food, much of the kind he was used to: a couple of packs of ramen and a dusty box of mac ‘n cheese that had fallen to the bottom of a cupboard, thereby escaping college-kid appetites.

He’d eaten the ramen and mac ‘n cheese first to supplement his diet of Funyuns and Mr. Pibb, but he still had the spices, and this morning’s venture to the farmer’s market had yielded the veggies. He felt a little shame about the hamburger meat, which he’d rescued from a rack of stuff to be thrown away behind the grocery store. He’d gotten it before it went in the dumpster, but still. Its “Use or Freeze By” date was past, and it was turning grayish-brown, but it didn’t smell bad, so Sam hoped it wouldn’t hurt him. He knew Bones had to have meat, regardless. He hadn’t been able to figure out a way to get dog food yet. Bones didn’t look like he was used to eating much—hence his name. But Sam felt safer and less lonely with him around, and wanted to repay that, so he was cooking for both of them now.

He recalled a dog food commercial that showed vegetables and wheat going into the bag along with meat, so he figured dogs liked vegetables, too. He cut them up with his pocket knife as best he could, using a clean cardboard box as a cutting board. He’d taken the extra-long extension cord he’d “borrowed” from a construction site, threaded it down through a fence across some landscaping, and plugged it into an outlet in the back of the old gas station there; very discreet. It supplied power to his hula lamp and hotplate.

Bones watched him cut the veggies with the same polite interest he showed any action of Sam’s, but when Sam took the meat out of the wrapper and put it in the pan on the hotplate, he got pretty excited.

“Hang on, boy. You’ll get your share when it’s cooked,” Sam laughed. 

Sam looked over the spices. He put in some of everything except the orange stuff. It didn’t smell familiar. After it had cooked a few minutes, the stew actually started smelling like food. Sam’s stomach twisted, but he wasn’t sure if it was hunger or loneliness. Probably both. Dean would be the one standing over the hotplate, usually. Sam lost himself in memories of times they’d laughed together, eating whatever Dean could scrounge up when Dad was gone. They often ate better then than when he was with them; the older they got, the more Dad seemed prone to forget trivial things like food. Sam felt a brief surge of anger, and then heard a thump that broke his reverie.

“Bones! No!” The dog had knocked the pan off the hotplate and was eagerly nosing into its contents. Sam righted the hotplate and started to pull the pan away, but hesitated as Bones looked up, giving Sam a doggy grin. “I know you’re hungry, boy, but…” Bones had already licked up what had spilled, and was drooling in a sadly desperate way, trying not to look at the pan.

Sam sighed after a moment and set the pan down. But nothing. He’d eaten when Dean was hungry, plenty of times, and he was done with that. He was the grown-up now, the provider. Bones was his responsibility.

Bones slurped happily for a minute as Sam stared into space, brooding. After a moment, Sam noticed the sounds had stopped, and in the silence, Bones looked up at him, gravely wagging his plume of a tail. The pan was still half full. Bones stepped away, again trying not to look at the pan, instead gazing expectantly at Sam.

Sam’s heart contracted. Bones had left him his share. He briefly considered eating it—the smell was still enticing—but the meat wasn’t all the way cooked, and Sam wasn’t sure he was ready to try dog-drool as a seasoning.

“I’m good,” Sam said. “You finish that.” When Bones made no move toward the pan and kept wagging, Sam nudged it closer, under his nose. He held up a half-eaten roll of Sweet-Tarts he’d found on his way home from the college. “Don’t worry; I’ll eat these.”

Bones forgot his doubts quickly in the joys of half-raw hamburger. Sam slowly nibbled the Sweet-Tarts, and thought of Dean. Soon enough, Bones settled in beside him on his bedroll, and soothed by the silky warmth against him and the knowledge of a full belly, even if it was not his own, he fell asleep.

~* * *~

This time, Sam was making something _good._ He had everything he needed. Pages of recipe books he’d seen long ago were clear in his mind—he’d always had a good memory. He’d lucked into all this good food. What should he make? He remembered some of the dishes from Stephanie’s Thanksgiving. Maybe he could have something like that, even if there was only Bones to share it with. He somehow had a stove, refrigerator, and counter now. Like in that motel where he and Dean, and Dad for a little bit of the time, had stayed for almost a month once. Sam had been too little to reach the countertops and Dean had done all the cooking, but now it was Sam’s turn.

“Smells good. When’s dinner?”

Sam dropped the spatula and whirled around. It was Dean, but… could he have gotten so much older in just a couple of weeks? He looked like a grown-up.

Dean flopped down in Sam’s beanbag and absently petted Bones, who came to greet him. Sam wondered why the dog hadn’t barked. He should be wondering how Dean had found him, or possibly why. He should ask where Dad was, if he was coming, and how much trouble he’d be in when he got there.

Instead, he said, “It’ll be ready in a minute.” Dean just nodded and kept petting Bones, while Sam served up a delicious turkey dinner, with all the sides, and pumpkin pie for dessert. The orange spice had turned out to be pumpkin pie spice. Perfect. Everything was perfect.

They ate. It was delicious; Dean said so, said he couldn’t remember eating this good in forever. Better than Boston Market. Sam agreed, and Bones made happy slurping noises over his bowl. He wasn’t so thin anymore.

Dean commented about everything in the shack—how cleverly Sam had managed the electricity, the hotplate, the comfy beanbag. He whistled at the girl on the hula lamp, teased Sam that it was his new girlfriend.

Finally Sam _did_ ask. “Umm… is Dad… does he know…”

“What Dad doesn’t know won’t hurt ‘im,” Dean answered. “He’s not coming. Yet. You gotta decide first.”

“Decide what?” 

“If you want to stay. You got a pretty sweet setup here. But I know you miss us.”

“I miss _you,_ ” Sam corrected him sullenly.

“You miss Dad more.”

Mysteriously, it was true: Sam’s affection for Dean was greater, like a bright flame inside him, but where Dad lived in him was a throbbing ache, a vivid presence that was absence. Dad. He wanted to see his face, even screaming at him. Even the silent disappointment that was worse than the anger. Had it really only been two weeks? It felt like years. Tears leaked from his eyes. He knew what his answer was before he could voice it to Dean.

“I’d stay, you know,” Dean said. “If you really want out. I don’t know if there’s a way out for us, but we can move on. Just the two of us. If it’s so bad, you don’t have to come back. But my place is with you. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Sam said immediately. “Yeah, always.”

~* * *~

Sam woke to the deep underground silence of home. The years since Flagstaff didn’t return with wakefulness—they had never been gone, and the Dean of his dream, the Dean who came and said he’d stay with him, always, was across the hall and down a few doors, deep in whatever whiskey-induced half-sleep he could find. All their troubles still waited at the door.

Dean was obsessed with the Darkness, and with saving Cas from Lucifer. With saving the world, a task that was always before them. Under the weight of no leads and plenty of whiskey, Dean was sinking. Sam had to think of a way to buoy him up. Until he could find a case, what would that be?

He thought back over his dream, and Bones. It was strange to think that an animal still so immediate to him, who lived so vividly in his mind, must be long dead. He could still smell his doggy breath and feel the jutting ribs under the silken fur, remember exactly how he used to wriggle so that Sam’s petting reached every part of him. Bones had been such a comfort to him, but Dean wasn’t a fan of dogs the way Sam was. After all, a golden retriever like Bones had once ripped his throat out, even if Dean didn’t remember it…

But food—that Dean could always appreciate. Sam had cooked since the aborted stew experiment in Flagstaff, of course, but he’d kept it simple, and anyway, the kitchen in the Bunker had always been Dean’s domain. Why should it be, though? Cooking was basically just chemistry and physics, and Sam understood those things really well.

He looked at his phone. No messages, and it was still early morning. Dean would probably be asleep for a few hours yet. Plenty of time. Sam dug his spare key to the Impala out of his duffel and slipped out for a grocery run.

~* * *~

Well, it wasn’t perfect, he reflected a couple of hours later. The Men of Letters must have eaten pretty well, because there were plenty of cookbooks alongside the grimoires and archaic religious texts. Sam was used to following complex, precise instructions, and the recipe for pie crust was more forgiving than most spells. Best of all, he didn’t have to cut himself; no blood or other bodily fluids of any kind involved. Hopefully—he smiled, remembering Bones’ drool in the stew.

He’d been inspired by dinner at Jody’s house and had settled on roast chicken and potatoes, with salad for him, and for Dean, dessert would be pumpkin pie. The chicken was a little burnt on one side—the oven was ancient, and Sam figured out he should have pre-heated it, once he saw preheating instructions in the pie recipe. But it was still juicy under the skin, and the potatoes seemed just right. Far superior to what they were used to eating, and the pie was turning out better than he’d had any reason to expect. He’d figured canned filling was good enough for his first attempt at pie, and the scent filling the kitchen was warmly enticing.

“Hey. Any leads on—what are you doing?”

A dishevelled, disgruntled Dean stood in the doorway in his dead-guy robe. Sam smiled as a little of the weight slowly lifted from his brother’s features.

“Cooking. No leads. I figured we shouldn’t need Jody to have a decent meal now and then. Hungry?”

Dean blinked four or five times. “Uh… sure.” He came over and opened the oven a crack. “Is that… pie?”

Sam grinned. “Better than the Gas ‘n Sip’s, ya think? It should be ready.”

The first genuine smile Sam had seen in weeks crept over Dean’s face as Sam slipped on oven mitts and pulled out the pie.

“Chicken first?” Dean said, his eyes darting from the pie to the broiler pan.

Sam smirked and handed Dean a knife. “Nah. Why not cut to the chase?” He was rewarded by Dean’s smile growing into a full-fledged grin as he pulled a stack of dessert plates out of the cupboard. 

As Dean happily cut a piece of pie of a size that could only be called a slab, Sam reflected that it had been awhile since they really talked—not that they were ever so good at it. He’d always meant to try to make them better. Now was as good a time as any—better, since good food seemed to open Dean up more than anything else. There were some things Sam wanted to say, and to hear.

For now, the Darkness would have to wait. It was time to shed a little light.


End file.
